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adjusted the front of her dress carefully.
    â€˜I’ll see you downstairs,’ he said. ‘Don’t be too long, and do make a fuss of Littleton. He’s important, and he likes the girlies.’
    After he had closed the door Tara stared at it for a moment, then she repeated his question aloud. ‘What happened to us, Shasa? It’s quite simple really. I just grew up and lost patience with the trivialities with which you fill your life.’
    On the way down she looked in on the children. Isabella was asleep with teddy on top of her face. Tara saved her daughter from suffocation and went to the boys’ rooms. Only Michael was still awake. He was reading.
    â€˜Lights out!’ she ordered.
    â€˜Oh, Mater, just to the end of the chapter.’
    â€˜Out!’
    â€˜Just this page.’
    â€˜Out, I said!’ And she kissed him lovingly.
    At the head of the staircase she drew a deep breath like a diver on the high board, smiled brightly and went down
into the blue drawing-room where the first guests were already sipping sherry.
    Lord Littleton was much better value than she had expected – tall, silver-haired and benign.
    â€˜Do you shoot?’ she asked at the first opportunity.
    â€˜Can’t stand the sight of blood, me dear.’
    â€˜Do you ride?’
    â€˜Horses?’ he snorted. ‘Stupid bloody animals.’
    â€˜I think you and I are going to be good friends,’ she said.
    There were many rooms in Weltevreden that Tara disliked; the dining-room she actively hated with all those heads of long-dead animals that Shasa had massacred staring down from the walls with glass eyes. Tonight she took a chance and seated Molly on the other side of Littleton and within minutes Molly had him hooting with delighted laughter.
    When they left the men with the port and Hauptmanns and went through to the ladies’ room, Molly pulled Tara aside, bubbling over with excitement.
    â€˜I’ve been dying to get you alone all evening,’ she whispered. ‘You’ll never guess who is in the Cape at this very moment.’
    â€˜Tell me.’
    â€˜The Secretary of the African National Congress – that’s who. Moses Gama, that’s who.’
    Tara went very still and pale and stared at her.
    â€˜He’s coming to our home to talk to a small group of us, Tara. I invited him, and he especially asked for you to be present. I didn’t know you knew him.’
    â€˜I met him only once—’ she corrected herself, ‘twice.’
    â€˜Can you come?’ Molly insisted. ‘It’ll be best if Shasa does not know about it, you understand.’
    â€˜When?’
    â€˜Saturday evening, eight o’clock.’
    â€˜Shasa will be away and I’ll be there,’ Tara said. ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

S ean Courtney was the stalwart of the Western Province Preparatory School First XIV, or Wet Pups, as the school was known. Quick and strong, he ran in four tries against the Rondebosch juniors and converted them himself, while his father and two younger brothers stood on the touchline and yelled encouragement.
    After the final whistle blew Shasa lingered just long enough to congratulate his son, with an effort restraining himself from hugging the sweaty grinning youngster with grass stains on his white shorts and a graze on one knee. A display like that in front of Sean’s peers would have mortified him horribly. Instead they shook hands.
    â€˜Well played, sport. I’m proud of you,’ he said. ‘Sorry about this weekend, but I’ll make it up to you.’ And although the expression of regret was sincere, Shasa felt a buoyancy of his spirits as he drove out to the airfield at Youngsfield. Dicky, his erk, had the aircraft out of the hangar and ready for him on the hardstand.
    Shasa climbed out of the Jaguar and stood with his hands in his pockets and the cigarette in the corner of his mouth,